Soul legend Stevie Wonder is spearheading a new Broadway musical about America's Underground Railroad, which offered escaped slaves the chance for freedom. The Sir Duke hitmaker has signed as executive producer of the project, which will also be turned into a TV mini-series, titled Freedom Run.
NBC Entertainment boss Bob Greenblatt, who is the brains behind the stage and screen project, told a Television Critics Association panel on Friday (16Jan15) that he has asked the Motown legend to create the score.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the eight-hour mini-series will be based on Betty DeRamus' book Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories From the Underground Railroad.
Greenblatt says, "We're increasingly looking for projects that qualify as television events and these harrowing true stories of courageous young men and women who found love, in spite of the heinousness of slavery, certainly does that. Furthermore, the idea of also developing this into a Broadway musical with Stevie Wonder is very exciting as we look to expand the scope of our live stage business. We're thrilled that these producers wanted to bring this important project to us."

Top session bassist Tim Drummond has died, aged 74. The musician, who regularly collaborated with Neil Young and Bob Dylan, passed away on Sunday (11Jan15).
Drummond began his career in country and R&B in the 1960s, performing and recording with the likes of Conway Twitty and James Brown, before he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he became an in-demand session player.
He became a member of Young's Stray Gators band when the rocker recorded Harvest in Nashville, and also toured with Young and with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. He also recorded with CSN and Crosby and Nash.
While touring with CSNY in the mid-1970s, Drummond met Dylan and joined his band, co-writing the song Saved for the folk-rock icon.
The bass player also performed and recorded with J.J. Cale, Ry Cooder, Bette Midler, Paula Abdul and Jewel.

Folk legend Bob Dylan will be presented with the 2015 MusiCares Person of the Year honour from former U.S. president Jimmy Carter after receiving musical tributes from Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson and Jack White. The Lay Lady Lay hitmaker will be honoured at the Recording Academy's 25th annual benefit gala dinner and concert on 6 February (15), and a host of stars have lined up to celebrate Dylan's career.
Joining Springsteen, Nelson and White will be Crosby, Stills & Nash, Tom Jones, John Mellencamp, Eddie Vedder, Neil Young, Beck, the Black Keys, Los Lobos, Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones and singer/songwriter John Doe.
President Carter will close out the night by personally saluting the veteran.
Proceeds from the event will benefit the MusiCares organisation, which provides financial and medical aid to musicians in need.
Previous MusiCares Person of the Year honourees include Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Bono, Tony Bennett and Carole King, who received the accolade last year (14).

Movie mogul Bob Weinstein has been ordered to hand over $300,000 (£187,500) in legal fees to his estranged wife. The Hollywood producer split from second wife Annie in 2012, when she filed for divorce after 12 years of marriage.
She signed a prenuptial agreement prior to their 2000 wedding, but she challenged the contract during their divorce, claiming she had been rushed into signing the document.
Annie took her case to a New York appeals court and asked for more time to fight the prenup, but a panel of judges rejected her bid on Tuesday (16Dec14).
The court officials also denied her requests to have Sin City executive Weinstein pay for her extra expenses, including costs for a chauffeur and for a vacation home in Michigan.
However, there was a small victory for the producer's ex - she was awarded thousands in legal fees.
Her lawyer, Harriet Newman Cohen, tells the New York Post, "We are gratified at the counsel fee decision."
The estranged couple has two young children together. Bob Weinstein also has two daughters from his first marriage.

Recordings by artists including Bob Dylan, Abba and Chic will be added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015. The list of 27 classic singles or albums, aged 25 years or older, have been chosen by bosses at The Recording Company for being "memorable, inspiring and iconic" and becoming a part of the public's "musical, social, and cultural history."
The list includes singles such as Le Freak by Chic, Dancing Queen by ABBA, School's Out by Alice Cooper, Try a Little Tenderness by Otis Redding and Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed, who will also be posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year (15).
Albums to be inducted include Never Mind the B*****ks, Here's the Sex Pistols by the Sex Pistols, Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan and other discs by Kraftwerk, Neil Young, Harry Belafonte, Leonard Cohen and Willie Nelson.
They will be inducted in February (15).

Lyric sheets for two unrecorded Bob Dylan songs written early in his career failed to find a buyer at auction on Thursday (04Dec14). The typed manuscript for Talkin Folklore Center from 1962 was estimated to fetch between $40,000 (£25,000) and $60,000 (£37,500), and the written words for 1963's Go Away You Bomb had a price tag between $30,000 (£18,750) to $50,000 (£31,250).
However, when the items went under the hammer at Christie's auction house in New York on Thursday, they failed to sell.
The lyric sheets were given to concert producer Izzy Young after he helped to stage the folk rocker's first big show at the Carnegie Chapter Hall in New York in November, 1961.
The proceeds from the lyrics were to benefit Young's new venture, the Folklore Centrum in Stockholm, Sweden, where he relocated in 1972. It is not known if he plans to try to sell them again.

Bob Dylan's lyrics for two unrecorded songs penned early in his career are expected to sell for thousands when they go under the hammer this week (begs01Dec14). The typed manuscript for Talkin Folklore Center from 1962 is estimated to fetch between $40,000 (£25,000) and $60,000 (£37,500), while the lyric sheet for 1963's Go Away You Bomb carries a price tag of between $30,000 (£18,750) to $50,000 (£31,250).
Both items feature handwritten annotations by Dylan and were gifted to concert producer Izzy Young, after he helped to stage the folk rocker's first big show at the Carnegie Chapter Hall in New York in November, 1961.
Dylan wrote Talkin Folklore Center at the request of Young, who owned the fabled Folklore Center in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, while he penned Go Away You Bomb for an unpublished book of anti-nuclear songs Young had been compiling.
Proceeds from the Christie's New York auction, set to take place on Thursday (04Dec14), will benefit Young's new venture, the Folklore Centrum in Stockholm, Sweden, where he relocated in 1972.
It's the latest set of Dylan lyrics to go up for grabs - a handwritten manuscript of his classic hit Like a Rolling Stone set a new auction record for popular music lyrics in June (14), when it sold for over $2 million (£1.25 million).

Paintings by stars including Shakira, Annie Lennox, will.i.am and Kylie Minogue have raised $122,000 (£76,000) in an online charity auction series. More than 330 celebrities donated original works for the bi-annual Stars on Canvas sale on eBay.com.
Lennox was one of the top sellers, with her canvas bringing in $4,700 (£3,000). She depicted the lyrics to her Eurythmics hit Sweet Dreams in the painting.
Shakira's piece made $308 (£205), while British pop star Robbie Williams raised $1,600 (£1,000) with his piece, which featured lines from his single Angels.
Other participants included will.i.am, Kylie Minogue, J.J. Abrams and Donny Osmond.
The sale brought in funds for the Willow Foundation, a charity project set up by British soccer star Bob Wilson to help seriously ill young adults.

Ac/Dc will not be welcoming drummer Phil Rudd back into the band after a charge of attempting to procure murder by New Zealand police was dropped last week (ends07Nov14). Guitarist Angus Young admits he's relieved Rudd's crime has been reduced to one charge of threatening to kill as well as possession of meth and marijuana, but there's no place for the rocker in the band as it plots a new world tour.
Speaking to USA Today, bassist Cliff Williams reveals that he and his bandmates feared Rudd could not be relied upon as they started work on a new album and planned a major trek for 2015, stating, "It put us in a difficult situation. It put us in a spot where we couldn't move forward. Does the guy show up? Is he reliable to do his job in good shape? We've always been a solid, reliable unit."
And Young adds, "He's a great drummer, and he's done a lot of stuff for us. But he seems to have let himself go. He's not the Phil we've known from the past... I can only say, from our perspective, that the guy needs to sort himself out."
Rudd was replaced by drummer Bob Richards for the filming of AC/DC's new video Play Ball.

Danny Devito has not become a fan of One Direction despite starring in their latest music video for Steal My Girl. The funnyman was recruited to play the director of their promo but admits he does not listen to the boyband's music and simply took the job to win favour with the younger members of his family.
When asked if he likes their songs by a journalist at Britain's The Sun newspaper, DeVito replied, "No, no I'm a Bob Dylan fan... I have many, many young kids in my family who would just beat me up if I didn't do (it)... I saw it as an opportunity to take a picture of them with (me). That's what I did!
"I was flattered and I was really happy to go do it. It was a ball... It was reminiscent of the days when you saw the Beatles go somewhere and there were always packs of people following them."